ABC Wednesday: K is for . . .

~ Kindness ~

In 2010 I wrote a post called Let Kindness Be Your Guide which is part of my Travel Thoughts series that I started.  The premise of the post is that while traveling solo I am always so touched with the amount of kindness I receive from perfect strangers, especially at moments when I needed their kindness the most.  

I thought it would be cool to use this week's K letter to continue my series and share two more encounters I experienced in my travels since I wrote the post.

And here they are: 

2010- I traveled to Amsterdam, Belgium and Berlin for 3 weeks.  On my first day arriving in Berlin I decided to venture out to Alexander Platz to visit the beautiful Christmas markets.  I took their subway there, but on my way back to my apartment the subway line that I needed to take was closed one stop before I had to exit.  First, a nice local was kind enough to explain what was happening and gave me directions on how to catch a bus to my stop after the train stopped.  Although I followed his directions I still got lost because by this time it was dark.  I had no clue where I was.  Suddenly I saw a Berliner walking up eating a sandwhich. I stopped to ask him for directions. He waited patiently while I pulled up the address of my apartment from my itouch.  He recognized it immediately and with a smile told me to just walk across the park and pointed out the building. I was so relieved and happy.  I couldn't thank him enough.

2012 - While visiting the Amalfi Coast in Italy, I decided to hike the famous Sentiero degli Dei ("Path of the Gods") trail up high above the coast.  Although, I am perfectly fearless (well to a point anyway) traveling solo for some reason while I was up in the trails by myself, I became rather scared at one point. I made the mistake of watching the movie 127 Hours before my trip and my imagination took hold of me.  I started to think about what would happen if I fell and was stranded up here in the hills for hours. I just had one bottle of water to last me. Suddenly this dog out of no where appeared and literally kept me company and escorted me on the trail until I reached the town of Nocella. As soon as we reached the town, he took off.  I will never forget this little guy's kindness. :) Here's a little quick video that I did of him (I have to warn you that there is a lot of shake). 

So as the lyrics in the song by Jackie DeShannon says, Let kindness be your guide . . .

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